Recently, Results for America joined with The Hamilton Project to host a wide-ranging discussion on the importance of using evidence and data to inform policy and funding decisions.
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EDC has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a suite of digital tools that will help middle-school history and social studies teachers make better use of primary sources. As part of the three-year $3 million project, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), will create, test, and scale effective instructional methods for teaching with original source materials.
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In his 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced plans to expand pre-K programs and take a step towards universal pre-K in all states. Multiple other bills introduced by Congress also focus on early care and education (ECE; also referred to as early childhood education). This policy brief examines the increased interest in ECE.

We face a critical need to prepare children and adolescents to thrive in the 21st century—an era of rapidly evolving technology, demanding and collaborative STEM knowledge work, changing workforce needs, economic volatility, and unacceptable achievement gaps.
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The Dept. of Education is taking the next step to make research and evidence more important factors as it awards competitive grants by proposing significant changes to a set of rules known as EDGAR as part of a government-wide push to introduce more evidence into decision-making.  Knowledge Alliance has submitted these comments on the proposed changes.

A new report by the William T. Grant Foundation says that thinking purely in terms of how to get educators to use research presented to them creates a “one-way street” that’s less effective than developing true partnerships between districts and researchers.

Knowledge Alliance has been supportive of the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) since its inception.  We believe it has been a highly effective vehicle for developing, validating, and bringing to scale educational innovations that can have a true impact on achievement and other educational outcomes.  
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Writing for Education Week’s Inside School Research blog, Sarah Sparks observes that “The Institute of Education Sciences is getting a lot of support for its proposal to go beyond research on ‘what works’ in education to explore the process of how schools in different contexts can continue to improve over time.”  She then quotes from Knowledge Alliance’s letter of support to IES.  Read the full blog post here.

Wesley A. Hoover, the president and CEO of SEDL, has been elected to serve as chairman of the board of directors of Knowledge Alliance. In this role, Dr. Hoover will lead Knowledge Alliance’s Board of Directors in providing oversight and advice to the organization’s professional staff members.  
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Jon Baron, president of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, proposes that the Obama Administration and Congress make it a priority, in the President’s second term, to increase the effectiveness of social spending through evidence-based policy reform.  Read his opinion piece here.